Sichuan Earthquake Update

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

A candle vigil was held in Glasgow city centre on 25 May in memory of the victims of Sichuan earthquake.

(The information for MBL from FanWu in USA.)

Chinese eager to adopt quake orphans By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN and CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writers

The children’s faces stare in somber black-and-white photos from newspapers and scribbled posters at relief camps, seeking their parents. Many will never find them.

As the first estimate of orphans - more than 4,000 - emerged Thursday from last week’s deadly earthquake, thousands of Chinese are rushing to offer their homes. “My husband and I would really like to adopt an earthquake orphan (0-3 years old),” Wang Liqin wrote on popular Web site Tianya.com in a forum that was already three pages long.

The high interest is another sign of China’s tremendous post-quake outpouring of sympathy, buoyed by rising prosperity. And it’s a surprising turnabout in a country in which government red-tape, poverty and traditional attitudes long combined to discourage adoption.

The new enthusiasm also means that Americans and other foreigners wanting to adopt may not have a chance. Officials estimate that the number of Chinese wanting to adopt the earthquake’s orphans may outnumber the orphans themselves.

(more…)

RICEFIELD
Arts and Cultural Centre

invites you to a private viewing of woodblock prints
on Friday 23 May 2008, 5 to 8 pm

Ricefield is collaborating with Glasgow Print Studio to bring to Glasgow an exhibition of the remarkable woodblock prints of Chen Qi.

Chen Qi is one of China’s leading contemporary printmakers; he has exhibited extensively throughout the world. As a relatively young artist, he is also the professor of Fine Art at Beijing University. His total command of tone using this medium, make him a master of Chinese traditional water-based printmaking. Chen Qi uses distinctive Chinese icons extensively in his woodblock prints. Each of his works reflects the simple, elegant and tranquil elements of traditional Chinese painting.

RSVP to Suzanne Chong: events@ricefield.org.uk

Exhibition dates:
23 May – 28 June 2008
Tuesday to Saturday
10:30am – 5:00pm
(out of office hours viewing can be arranged by appointment)

Ricefield, 41 West Graham St, Glasgow G4 9LJ
0141 331 1019
www.ricefield.org.uk

All proceed of this exhibition will go towards the MBL Suchauan Earthquark Appeal
For more information please visit: http://sichuanearthquake.org.uk

Please feel free to forward this email to any colleagues you think may be interested.

The thread of life amid debris of destruction
By Fu Jing
Updated: 2008-05-21 07:14
(source:China Daily)

Children from Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas in Sichuan province, play a game in Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang city yesterday. A lot of people who lost their homes in the quake have taken shelter in the stadium. [China Daily]

BEICHUAN, Sichuan: Yang Debiao refuses to eat. “How can I when I have lost 60 family members and relatives in the quake?” says the 38-year-old. “How can I live without my wife? What will I tell my daughter when she asks where her mother is?”

Yang has just returned from Shanxi province where he worked in a mine.

His wife died when the cyber caf she used to work in collapsed. His nine-year-old daughter escaped miraculously, though hundreds of her schoolmates died when their school building collapsed.

Yang and Deng Xingyou, a retiree, are sitting on the rubble of building with their surviving relatives. Two bundles of clothes and quilts and a bottle of edible oil lie near them. Both of them returned to Beichuan county from a shelter in Mianyang city on Monday in the hope of finding their loved ones.

Though many people have been found alive under the debris of buildings after five, six or even seven days, the chance of finding one now is too remote.

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Guardian’s Tania Branigan tells the incredible story of the pupils of Liu Han Hope Elementary school (刘汉希望小学) of Beichuan (北川) County, who survived the earthquake thanks to the school building which stood firm, then when realised being cut off and threatened by aftershocks and rockslide, trekked through the mountains to reach the safety, escorted by their teachers and local police.

The Liu Han Hope Elementary school in Beichuan county stands in the heart of the disaster zone yet, while hundreds died across Sichuan province in classrooms that crumbled to dust, every one of its 483 pupils survived last week’s quake.

China yesterday raised its toll of the dead and missing to 70,000, and warned of a “desperate need” for tents to shelter millions of homeless survivors. But the story of the children’s escape is a rare piece of good news. While other schools disintegrated, theirs stood firm. Even the three-storey glass wall remained intact. When the slopes around them began to threaten their safety, staff marched pupils as young as five out of their remote home on an all-day, all-night trek.

“It was nothing outstanding - just a teacher’s responsibility,” Xiao Xiaochuan said. “It was not done by one teacher but by the whole faculty and students, with help from police and officials.”

Read the full story from the Guardian website.

Ricefield Arts and Culture Centre, a Glasgow-based art orgnisation has decided to donate all proceed of its coming exhibition, Chinese Water-based Woodblock Prints by Chen Qi, to Sichuan Earthquake Appeal for helping children affected by Sichuan earthquake.

Chen Qi is one of China’s leading contemporary printmakers, and a professor of Fine Art at Beijing University. Chen Qi uses distinctive Chinese icons extensively in his woodblock prints. Each of his works reflects the simple, elegant and tranquil elements of traditional Chinese painting.

Ricefield Arts was founded by Lin Chau and Julia Hung in 2004. While Ricefield Arts gears into nurturing Chinese art and culture within the Chinese community in Scotland, helping its members to embrace their common heritage, it is also dedicated to share this great tradition with all the people of Scotland, enriching the cultural life of this nation.

Mei Wong’s letter.

Hi All

Firstly, apologies to those that have received this more than once.

As you may know the BC Project has been working with various Chinese community groups over the past week to raise funds for the China earthquake appeal. Tonight, to coincide with the third day of mourning in China, the BC Project is co-organising a candlelight vigil for the earthquake victims.

The vigil will be held tonight (Wednesday 21st May) at the London Chinatown Pagoda on Newport Place from 8pm - 11pm. If you’re free please do pop by and light a candle - we will observe 1 minute silence at 8.30, 9.30 and 10.30pm.

If you can please tell your family, friends and colleagues about this too and thanks for your help and support.
Best wishes

Mei Wong
BC Project
0750 800 5645

News source

Two buildings collapsed in the earthquake in Juyuan secondary school China,Photographied by Junhu Li, repoter of Finance and Economy.

On the day returning to school, Shihao Guo read a card with his writing with tears,’ Brother Wei Zhu, Are you all right in Heaven?

On 19th of May, Some of secoundary one students in Juyuan Secondary school, city of Dujiangyan, returned to class.

The classes were moved to Juyuan Primary school because in Juyuan Scoundary, 1 or 2 km away, 2 buildings collapsed in the earthquake and several hundred students and 6 teachers were tragically killed.

The head teacher of Juyuan Secondary school said,’ one week ago, we were working and studying together, but now we are seperated between 2 worlds.’

(more…)

source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSPEK338409

CHENGDU, China, May 18 (Reuters) - Chinese authorities already struggling to deal with the aftermath of Monday’s massive earthquake are now trying to cope with a flood of children orphaned by the disaster.

Over the weekend more than 140 Chinese teenagers with missing parents were moved to a university campus in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.

Experts and social workers warn that much more needs to be done to repair the deep psychological damage that they and other survivors have suffered, in an earthquake whose death toll is already approaching 30,000, and is likely to climb further.

“The students have been given the food, clothes and shelter that they need since they arrived last night. And they are now starting to think about their families. They are crying at night as they can’t find their parents,” said their teacher Zhang Ping.

“I think we have a big problem on our hands.”

Between the ages of 13 to 15, the students are from Yingxiu town, which was badly battered when the 7.9 quake rocked the southwestern province of Sichuan on Monday.

Many schools collapsed. Witnesses say they simply sank into the ground.

“The primary schools were completely flattened. My little sister is buried inside,” said Luo Xiaofung, 15. “I don’t think she could have survived.”

“We all quickly went under our tables as our teachers told us we are considered very lucky,” said Luo. Except for about 30 students and five teachers, everyone in her 1,600-strong school survived, teachers said.

SUDDEN ORPHANS

For Luo and her schoolmates, the canteen of the Chengdu Medical University will be their home for the foreseeable future.

Carpenters worked round the clock over the weekend to assemble bunk beds for the teenagers while university students removed half a dozen pool tables from the canteen to give the teenagers more space.

A large hall on an upper floor has been converted into their new dormitory with each child allotted the space of just one single mattress on the floor in the meantime.

“This is better than sleeping in a tent. It was beginning to stink (with rotting corpses) when we left Yingxiu,” said another student, Zhang Li.

Most of the students busied themselves cleaning and washing their clothes and shoes during their afternoon break.

But social workers say it will be a long time before any semblance of normalcy returns to the lives of these young people — if it happens at all.

“They may nod and agree when you tell them to be strong, but they are very hurt inside. They have lost their parents, lost everything in a flash,” said social worker Qian Guijun.

“The smaller children can’t even verbalise their feelings. They have a look of terror when you mention the earthquake. They just start tearing up.”

Many of the students were fixated on the two large TV screens installed in their dormitory, carrying news reports of the aftermath of the quake. One child turned around and hid her face, as she quietly wiped away her tears.

Thirteen-year-old Zeng Qiang, who lost his mother in the quake and is hunting for his father, asked a Reuters journalist to contact his older sister in Beijing. “Please let her know that granny and me are alive,” he said.

Yang Huijun, dean of the School of Basic Medicine, said many challenges lie ahead. Volunteers, like the Hong Kong-based Social Workers Across Borders, have approached the university to offer counseling services.

“We’ll have to work on their later problems, their emotional problems, once they settle in,” Yang said. (Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

A useful link:

http://english.gov.cn/service/children.htm

 At 2:28 p.m. (7:28 a.m. UK time) Monday(May 19), Chinese citizens nationwide will stand in silence for three minutes to mourn for the victims, while air raid sirens and horns of automobiles, trains and ships will wail in grief.

The China Seismological Bureau (CSB) Sunday ( May 18) revised the magnitude of southwest China earthquake from 7.8 to 8.0 on the Richter scale;

The death toll from magnitude 8.0 earthquake that jolted southwest China’s Sichuan Province had risen to 32,476 nationwide by 2 p.m. on Sunday and the number of injured reached 220,109

The Beijing Olympic torch relay will also be suspended from Monday to Wednesday.

source from Xin Hua